It came painted in a gorgeous red color, but as I looked closer I could see the paint was abundant to the point where it had waves in it due to too much thickness, as I expected the frame came in at a porky 1584 grams with no seat collar, including bearings.

I was convinced I could do something about it...

I took on the project for the majority of my spare time last winter.
Most of it was spent stripping and refinishing the frame, an ordeal I don't want to go through again:

The frame had many productions defects in the cosmetic weave, to top it off all the junctions of the tubes to lugs areas where filled with mastic filler * ie: Bondo * .
The paint was a complete nightmare to remove, it might have been epoxy based, I have never seen such hard paint.
Due to the paint's thickness, wet sanding was next to useless, the only thing that could be done was to use a commercial paint stripper.
I selected Star 10 Phase 1 semi-paste gel because of it's composite friendly nature, still it took over 45 minutes of " cook " time at each application and they where quite a few, then a Swix metal scraper ( made to scrape skis ) was used to remove it as soon as the paint had softened to a degree,but it was still difficult to remove even with a metal scraper .

After the paint was stripped, the mastic was then scraped off and wet sanding was used to finish the job.
All this took over two months,the frame was a complete mess due to poor finishing from factory. Many divots in the CF outer layer had to be filled once the heavy useless mastic was removed.
I chose to fill the gaps with a industrial grade of cyanoacrylate glue , similar to Krazy Glue but much stronger and durable , this took a month one small layer applied then sanding, over and over.

The frame, nude and with all the divots filled, ready to paint was 1361 grams. That's a 223 gram saving.

Because the cosmetic outer weave and may defects in it I was forced to use paint instead of just clear coating the frame.
All that you see here is done with a spray can, fade out and all .

The Specialized down tube graphic was done with a stencil I made out of a Specialized FSR series sticker set I bought on ebay.
I chose to use the same black color of the rest of the frame for the lettering.
The S logos are sticker ghost; paint over stickers and then removed to show the CF under.
The clear coat was treated to #1000 & #2000 grit wet sand paper and Meguiars Scratch X polish was used to complete the mirror finish .

The bike rides fantastic,the paint stripping did not affect the ride or stiffness of the frame at all ; it feels just like all the other Tarmacs of the same size I have ridden.
The fit is perfect and I love the Tarmac geometry, fast yet stable.

Overall I achieved my goal, the bike was built up because I got a great deal on the frame.
The wheel did not cost too much, got a deal on the hubs, the DT Aerolite spokes being the most expensive part.

Stem and cassette came from Fairwheel Bikes ,thank you Jason.
I got the gears working almost satisfactory on the KCNC cassette by taking out any slack in the cable system and shimming the Dura Ace derailleur pivots to take any play out, the upper pulley was changed to an XT and I filed the ceramic bushing to remove the float.

The Bontrager Race tape was chosen not only because of it's low weight but it's slimness ,it really makes the Syntace Racelight bar come alive ,all positions can be used with it unlike thicker tape that limited me from getting a good grab on the ergo top of the bar

After ~1400km :
The AC BB gave me some creaking at first but I then replaced the Loctite nickel anti seize I had in the cups and shims with the better quality Kleen Flo nickel paste.

The Powercordz have been flawless,the only problem occurring when the cable dried up at the BB cable guide , I then re-applied some Finish line Stanchion Lube that I used to lube the cables ,now it's running fine.

Sorry for the long post ; it was a very long project to get together,lots of small juicy details, lol

Last edited by ProTech on Mon Jul 31, 2006 11:02 am, edited 3 times in total.

Good job ! Incredible the amount of work you put into this project. Looks much better without the inserts.

_________________For if life, in the desire for which our essence and existence consists, possessed in itself a positive value and real content, there would be no such thing as boredom: mere existence would fufill and satisfy us.

Hey nice bike. I remember you. I saw you on the F1 track once this summer. we were riding in a pack. I recall telling my friend to take a glimpse of your bike. very stealthy.

good job on the work. it must have been painful. you might remember me I was on a spez roubaix.

so how did you take out the zertz inserts? do you just push on them and they come out. I wanna take them out too since I don't give a damn about them.

Thank you all for the compliments

ferrarista It's funny you mention the Grand Prix track,I'm sorry I did not see you but next time I'll keep an eye out for you. It's a very nice Roubaix you have I should have no trouble spoting it.

The pics where taken on the chicane at the back of the F1 circuit after Senna's curve where a few years back Olivier Panis smashed his F1 car against the same wall the bike is pictured in, he was hospitalized for 6 months here in MTL and it ruined his career.
On the second picture there is a barely visible front of a car exiting the chicane comming toward my bike, the spot where my bike is was the aproximate impact spot of the Panis's F1 car.

The Zerts inserts are bloody hard to get out by hand. If you look carefully on the inside of the seat stay there is a slit in them small enough to insert a Michelin tire lever.
They are slid into place at the factory using some sort of silicone grease, so find the spot where there is a little bit extra and insert the tire lever there, then wiggle it to make an air gap between the inset an seat stay ,keep going until the insert is not stuck too much. Only then can you try to push them out starting at the loose sport using the tire lever from the inside.
They do seem to come out a bit easier pushing out from the bottom pointy end.

Last edited by ProTech on Mon Jul 31, 2006 11:00 am, edited 3 times in total.

Great job , must be great to customize your bike like that (Taking what has come out, coz you probably didn't always found it enjoying )

Can you tell me what you've done with the Toupé seat? Did you make extra padding under the tip?

Cheers,David

The Toupe cover was left untouched even though I really wanted to strip it. They are rare these days locally and I'm somewhat to blame because I have recommended it to many people even at the begining of last winter and then sales just snowballed from there * pardon the pun ,hehe *

I could not find a scratch and dent one to warrant a full tuning .

So the only mods done are; first drilling a section of small holes under the front of the seat to releive some pressure that was bugging me since I tend to ride the nose a lot under hard efforts. Second mod was to take off the horrible plastic duck bill in the front, it caused me once to get a small scrape behind my leg while sitting down from a small climb, I also think it looks better without it.The plastic piece was hard to remove on mine,a lot of glue was on it's edges and I almost tore the cover while removing it. I then sanded and custom shaped the plastic piece that was taken off and re-glued it back underneath the seat , filled the gaps with the same cyanoacrylate glue used on the frame, then custom painted the piece to match the seat.

Mottsauce wrote:

Limited budget...I'd like to see what you do with unlimited funds.

I did get the frame a very friendly price, most of the components where ordered over the months from suppliers when they where on sale.
The rear derailleur is a salvage from a customer's crash See HereMy only luxury was the m2racer stuff.
The Syntace bar was a welcome addition, not too expensive and strong, coupled with the very light and stiff KCNC Sc Lite stem it makes a 294gram bar stem combo that has one more hand positions than a normal bar ( that outside bend section between the brake hoods and the ergo top) to releive my numb hands during the long hauls.

After nearly getting killed a couple of time with the tuned set of Cane Creek BRS 200 SL that was on the bike originally I had to replace them .

The ZeroG just showed up at the store one day out of the blue after months of delay, they where just there sitting in the display cabinet so I fugured all that money was well spend on something that improved the bike's safety.

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